Monaco and Italy

We hit our first port on the enrichment voyage yesterday, then our second one today. Monaco is the second smallest country in the world (after the Vatican, I believe). It was tiny, luxurious, and yesterday quite wet. We only spent about two hours in Monte Carlo, Monaco after we returned from an all day trip to the French Riviera. The modern art at a museum called the Maeght Foundation was a highlight of the day, the village of St. Paul de Vence was cute, the rain and fog that cancelled our stop in the picturesque town of Eze was not.

The ship moved just a few hours last night to port today in Livorno, Italy. I am soooo excited to finally be in Italy. I think part of me has wanted to visit Italy since I was 3 years old and my parents spent 6 weeks here while leaving my sister and me with my grandmother in Pittsburgh. Today did not disappoint. The Cinque Terre area of Tuscany is as picturesque as it comes. I have saved up all of my cheese and dairy consumption for Italy (lactose and I are not friends), and spent it all today on lunch and dinner. Mozzarella, gelato, eggplant parmiagiana, pizza, and my favorite, cannoli, were all worth the calories and enzyme pills. Fruit juice fast after Italy, right?

We are getting used to the different rhythm and routines of the enrichment voyage. It is more laid back, and with the European itinerary we move quickly from port to port. We do still miss the students but are meeting some very nice people on the ship and on trips. I will admit we were thrilled today to run into Matt and Christine, a sister and brother set of students from S13 in one of the Cinque Terre villages, and to hear they will be back on the ship when we get to Belgium. Their parents were amused and surprised we were all so excited to see each other.

Tomorrow Sr and I are off to Lucca for a bike tour, it will be a very easy hop on and off tour but we'll need that after all the months off. Jr and Grandpa are headed to Pisa which is only 12 km from our current port in Livorno.

Ciao!

Photos: Jr in front of the MV Explorer in Monaco as we hiked up to the Prince's Palace; Cinque Terre town of Venere where we had lunch; rowers we saw in the canal in Livorno on our way to dinner. Rowing friends, notice there are no sliding seats, only extra thick shorts and a smooth platform.

Still Afloat

Yes, I am still here. Sorry for the long silence, we've been a little busy. Things that have happened since my last post:

- We all went to Morocco, but on different trips. If you had asked me a few months ago whether I would be able to decide with five minutes notice to send my son and husband on a four-day hiking trip in Morocco while I went on a camel trek with my dad, my answer would most certainly have been different.  I liked Morocco way more than I expected, and camels about as much as I expected.

- The Spring 2013 academic voyage (S13) ended on Thursday morning. Part of me wants to write volumes about the closure of this amazing, complicated, unforgettable experience. Part of me will still be processing it all years from now. I'm going with the still processing part for today, but will try to write some about it as things settle into a routine again. 

- The May 2013 enrichment voyage (EV) started on Thursday afternoon. Yes, you read that right. I had about 3 hours off the ship in Barcelona, then back on to start the final part of this journey. About a third of the voyagers boarded on Thursday, the rest yesterday. The demographic and feel of the enrichment voyage are very different than the academic voyage, and we've all experienced the most significant culture shock of any part of our voyage so far. Here's a quick list of things that are the same and things that are different:

Different:

1. On S13, we had about 50 lifelong learners and around 600 students. On the enrichment voyage, there are about 50 students and the rest are lifelong learners, around 400 I think. 

2. There is a higher volume of questions in the library so far on the EV, but the variety is smaller. Schedule and directional questions are popular as always, as are travel questions. Instead of questions about reserve books for courses, requests for reading recommendations are a hot item.

3. Most learning is in short, 1-hour lectures, rather than traditional multi-session courses. There are a few workshops taught by faculty, though. Sr is thinking of taking one on ornithology and environmental conservation.

3. Our room is smaller, and on a lower deck. It rocks noticeably less when seas are high.

4. The food is much better. We've already seen more ice cream, fruit, and salad in two days on the EV than we saw during the entire S13. One of the dining halls now has sit-down meals. It takes some getting used to seeing the crew so formal, and the tables with linens and more forks than I know what to do with.

5. The faculty lounge is no longer just for faculty, and no longer a quiet work space during the day. Quiet reflection spots are a bit hard to find, but I expect that may improve as people start attending lectures and getting settled into routines.

Same:

1. The numbers of faculty and children are about the same on both voyages. The children's program is a bit more like camp, with activities in both the mornings and afternoons. Jr and Sr are still doing some writing and other homeschool work on sea days.

2. Travel books are still the most popular thing in the library.

3. The ship still rocks in rough seas. The Mediterranean is usually calm, but we are really rolling today.

4. People who travel on the ship are friendly, smart, and interesting.

5. The crew are wonderful. I think they are as happy as we are to see familiar faces. Denver, Paul, and Martin (some of the housekeeping crew members who take care of the library) came in to the library while I was writing this section, they all laughed when I told them I was writing about how nice they are.

We dock in Monaco tomorrow though we will spend most of the day in France, then right on to Livorno, Italy the next day with no sea day in between. I told Sr that sailing from Monaco to Italy is like moving your car from one end of the parking lot to the other.

Pictures:

Library work study student "photo shoot" in the stacks, Alumni Ball at the end of S13, Parc Guell in Barcelona.

Dear Readers

Morocco was fantastic, and I owe it a whole blog post. However, things are rapidly coming to a close for the Spring 2013 academic voyage around the world. We were very busy with end of voyage library tasks today, including our last meeting and photo of our library team. They were a great team all semester, and really got into posing today!

This Week at Sea

This week is our last between-port transit for the Spring 2013 voyage. It has been much like other transits since leaving Ghana on Wednesday.  Well, except that we stopped in an unexpected country in for a few hours, and watched some very talented shipmates for two evenings in a row.

On Thursday (I think, the days kind of run together), the dependent children's program had a demonstration of fruit carving by the dining crew. The kids were transfixed!

Mid-morning on Saturday, we stopped in The Gambia, which is a very small country surrounded by a not much bigger country (Senegal). We took on fuel and some medical supplies, then were on our way after a few hours. None of us were allowed off the ship, but I did have an interesting view out my cabin window for a few hours since the refueling vessel was parked right there (see below).

On Friday evening, we had the shipboard talent show. The musical and dramatic abilities of our shipmates blew us away. On Saturday evening after a study day, there was the first ever (we think) ship-wide drag show, which was as well-attended and as full of talent as the night before. 

The semester is drawing to a close with just one more days until we reach Morocco. Today is exam day for Global Lens courses, broad courses like Water for the World, Human Nature, International Law, of which each student took one to get a comparative view of a specific area of focus. Tomorrow is A day exam day, then four days in Morocco. After Morocco there are just three days which include a study day, an exam day, and packing/convocation. As you can imagine, things have been pretty hectic during both days and evenings. Things were hopping in the library the last few days with studying, materials returns, and end of voyage tasks, but it is quiet today with students taking exams.  

Photos: fruit carving, refueling in the Gambia.

Student Profile: Bryson

We are sailing toward Morocco today, the last port we will visit as a community. With just 14 days until the voyage ends in Barcelona and people go their separate ways, we are all buckling down to finish projects begun (or not) earlier in the semester. I better hurry up and profile all of the library work study students before we are out of sea days.

So, meet Bryson. From Los Angeles, he attends UCLA and is a senior double majoring in economics and global studies. While he isn't certain of his plans following graduation, he has taken advantage of the entrepreneurship exploration and mentoring opportunities made possible by the Unreasonable at Sea program's presence on the ship this semester.

What Bryson has valued most about Semester at Sea has been the consistent, face to face interaction with everyone on the ship. He says "living a life devoid of distractions" such as cell phones, fast internet, and easy mobility make these connections much easier to form. Off the ship, building and cultivating local relationships has been the most rewarding aspect of his time in port.

If he could change one thing about Semester at Sea, Bryson might want to see more defined tracks for port experiences. If students were asked to focus on a specific area such as service, business, or medicine across all ports, their comparative experience could be much richer. On the other hand, the freedom to follow changing interests and let them evolve naturally during the voyage is such an important part of the Semester at Sea experience that choosing a focus early on could be difficult.

As you can tell, Bryson is a deep thinker who likes to explore all sides of an issue. I look forward to seeing where his path leads after Semester at Sea and graduation. Thanks, Bryson, for being interviewed.

[picture coming shortly]

Ghana Miss Ya

It would be pretty hard to top the Winneba-Explorer experience of the first two days in Ghana, which I suspect will end up being a highlight of the entire voyage. I will say that Accra had a very different feel than either Takoradi or Winneba. We saw more development and more culture, with definitely more of a big city feel. 

While we were still docked in Takoradi and I was off being librarian-about-town with Cynthia, Jr, Sr, and Grandpa had a couple of adventures of their own. On the first day, they and many other SASers toured the fortresses in an area called Cape Coast where slaves were held then sent across the Atlantic. Sr and Grandpa came away with profound thoughts on the value of human life. Jr is still processing the experience, no doubt his thoughts will pop out when we least expect them.

We went on couple of other day tours from Accra, as well. Most were great, some were logistically less than ideal, but all were interesting. Ghana doesn't have many tourist attractions in the conventional sense, but we found plenty to see and do. Our adventures included a small museum, a memorial to a former president, the University of Ghana, a water village, a small game preserve, a hydro-electric dam, and a drumming/dance workshop. We really liked the food, I especially liked the shi-tok pepper sauce that is a condiment served with everything from fish to french fries. 

Shopping in the markets, especially in tourist areas, is what you might call a full contact sport in Ghana.  However, our Semester at Sea comparative experience came in handy here to help us put things in perspective. I won't mention any specific countries, but we have been in other ports where the selling practices felt just as intense to Americans who are used to shopping in impersonal mega-stores. I hope I don't go into Trader Joe's when I get back and try to bargain for a better price on cookies.

My favorite thing about Ghana has been the warm hospitality, especially from colleagues in Winneba but also from people we met exploring this week. Learning about regional drumming and dance traditions yesterday was a wonderful way to end our stay. Yes, I danced, no, I am not posting pictures of it. 

Pictures: fishing boats in Cape Coast; a critter for Mike; Grandpa at Shai Hills Nature Reserve.

SAS Librarian Magic

Some Semester at Sea magic happened in Ghana, I think. Several weeks ago, I found out that one of the SAS faculty and his family were making a trip across Ghana with the family of his former student who is from Ghana. Their trip included a stop in the town of Winneba to deliver books from the public library in Charlottesville to the libraries in Winneba. Winneba and Charlottesville have a sister city relationship, and there have been several visits back and forth of local officials, educators, and librarians. I met my colleague and friend Cynthia, one of the librarians at the University of Education in Winneba, when she visited Charlottesville last March, and had been hoping to connect with her when the ship reached Ghana. Everything came together, and I was able to join the trip to Winneba, visit the University of Education, and then bring Cynthia back to visit the MV Explorer. We were able to more than double the size of the book donation, as well, through a combination of withdrawn items from the MV Explorer library and donations of non-fiction books from SAS voyagers. In Winneba, we were also hosted by the delightful Tina, who heads the sister city commission, and Reverend Boni (sp?), who is a professor of psychology at UEW and also part of the sister city commission. My SAS colleague and his family then continued on to travel across Ghana with the family of one of his students, while Cynthia and I made our own way back to Takoradi, about a three hour trip from Winneba. We drove in Cynthia's car from along the coast road, and then she was able to visit on the ship with Olivia and me until this morning. It took the work and generosity of many people on the ship and back in Charlottesville make Cynthia's ship visit possible, I am grateful to all of you! I'm not sure whether Cynthia or I was more delighted that our visit magically came together, you can look at our smiles and decide for yourself. 

Pictures: our group in front of Osagyefo Library, South Campus University of Education, Winneba; Cynthia on the MV Explorer; Cynthia and Ellen in the MV Explorer Library.

Safari Pictures

I'm sure I could write more than a thousand words about our safari, but pictures will do the job better. Yes, we really were that close to the animals!